Off My Chest
by Miraculous Pink Ninja
Summary: Many people say that if you write a message and put it inside a glass bottle, something might -or will- happen. Some people place their wishes into the sea, hoping that they'll come true one day. Others throw their regrets into the ocean to save them from their misery. Ruby Rose, aged twenty, beaten and bloodied from her last battle, was both.


**Foreword:**

 **This is an alternate universe. In this world, the only main difference from the cannon series is that Oscar is two years older than Ruby. I ship Rose Garden, but I don't like shipping Ruby and Ozpin, so no complains about that being that.**

 **This verse takes place after Volume 5, but anything onwards never happened. Why? Because Volume 6 is about to come out and I don't want it interfering with my work. Though some elements of future volumes may be applied.**

 **I don't own RWBY. It belongs to Rooster Teeth and was created by the great man Monty Oum. I have no rights over the series, but it doesn't give anyone the right to claim my story as their own.**

 **This was written for my entertainment, and published in an attempt to entertain you.**

 **With that, enjoy :)**

It was the end of a sunny day. The sun was beginning to set, and Ruby Rose lay on her side on the shore, allowing the saltwater to lap her wounds.

She was tired. She was beaten and bloodied. She was defeated, but it didn't matter. Her team was avenged, and they may rest in peace, and Ruby lay there, watching as the blood of her enemies mingle with her own in the water as they were washed away.

Would her family be happy of her decisions? Would they still want to call her family? Would her friends still support her? Will they still stand by her side the next time troubles arise? Or would she fall onto her knees alone, at the mercy of all her enemies?

"I can't say that you did the right thing, but I'll say you did a good job at your choice. Not your best, but still good."

Ruby sighed quietly as the man who had stood by her side for as long as she could remember took a seat beside her. Ruby didn't want to think about how many lives were put at risk for his missions, for his goals, for his vision of a ' _perfect world_ '. She didn't want to think about how naïve she had been, charging headfirst into Emerald's forces that day without much thought. It was a trap, of course, and she didn't want to think of how stupid she had been, leading her team into disaster. She didn't want to think of her actions. She just wanted to lie on the warm sand, let the sea wash her booboos, and bask in the sun.

She felt safe. She felt like everything was perfect for her. The world… the world was safe, at least for another century. People are free to go to school, reach their dreams, have babies, raise children, live their lives, make their own choices, and die in peace, a privilege Ruby wasn't granted. She tried _so_ hard to make this world a better place. She always thought that one day, when all this is over, she's gonna finish three more years of Huntsman School, fall in love, have children, raise Remnant's best huntsmen (or whatever her babies wanted to be, they could be Grimm for all she cared, she just wanted them to do their best at it), and make her mom, dad, and sister proud, but after everything that happened, she doubt how anyone's gonna fall for her, a psychopath, she doubt that any huntsman academy would want her, she doubt she'd ever be able to rest in peace, knowing that the people who died by her hands will be waiting for her, waiting for their chance to crush her soul.

So she didn't want to think about it. She didn't want to think at all. She just wanted to stay here. **Forever**. Where all her past choices didn't matter. It would be great if she died there, watching the sunset, letting it warm her aching body.

"I think…"

Ruby didn't want to know what he thought. She didn't want to hear it.

He sighed. "I think you'd make a wonderful mother one day."

 _That_ caught her off guard.

"I think that you'd be able to live your life like none of the bad things ever happened."

… _What_?

"I think you'd be able to keep moving forward no matter what comes your way."

 _Wait… this isn't Ozpin._

"But not if you stay here and wait for whatever god's up there to claim for life."

 _Oscar_.

With all her strength, Ruby pushed herself up with her arms. She looked up at the boy. His eyes were peacefully looking over the horizon.

"I'm glad I took up Ozpin's offer. I'm glad to know that I'm the one who reached my hand out when people were in need. But…it wasn't me. It was all _Ozpin_. I'm just a flesh suit. A messenger when he wanted a rest. A dummy that takes the hit while he thought of a plan. A chest that has to hold all his secrets."

His voice was strained, tears pooling in his eyes.

"I want to live my life, but not while keeping all this guilt and secrets to myself. So you know what I'm going to do?"

His orange and green eyes met Ruby's silver one as a thin lines of tears ran down his cheeks.

"I'm going to write them down, and throw them into the ocean," he finished.

He brought out a pad of paper and a pencil. He proceeded to write down Ozpin's secrets.

Ruby knew that Ozpin was telling Oscar to stop, to not do what he's doing. She knew that Ozpin was working for control over Oscar's body, but she also knew that Oscar had a will.

A will that was stronger than her own. A will that was stronger than Ozpin's might. A will forged from his days as a farmhand at his aunt's and strengthened with the days spent with Ruby and her friends.

By the time he was done, the sheet was filled with writing back-to-back Oscar ripped the paper out of its pad and rolled it up. He brought out a glass bottle from beside him and placed the paper inside. He brought out a cork and pressed it in as much as he could. Oscar then got up and prepared to throw it at the ocean. He let go. The glass skid across the surface of the water until it came to rest on the ocean's surface. It was washed away by the waves. Oscar wasn't able to throw it very far, but it was a good distance away from the shore.

"Your turn."

Ruby looked up and saw him offering her the pad and pencil. The girl stared at them for a second before forcing herself up on her bottom. She hissed as her earlier untouched wounds were wet by saltwater and scratched by grains of sand and rocks, but with the help of Oscar, she was able to grip the writing material in one hand and the pad in the other.

It felt good to be able to throw all her worries into the sea. It felt good to be able to breathe again. The second the two glass bottles disappeared from the horizon, Ruby felt the weight that she had been carrying for a long, long time had disappeared into thin air.

She felt free.

"Ready to go now?"

She nodded.

Oscar slung her arm over his shoulder and helped her onto her feet. She stumbled as she was too weak to lift her left leg up, but she was able to drag her robotic leg along the dirt. It was well crafted, state of the art Atlas tech, but it was heavy. It felt like a burden. She wanted to let go, but she didn't.

" _Normal is what you make it."_

This wasn't normal, but she could get used it, just as well as she did when she lost her right eye to Tyrian two years back. Ruby proceeded to drag her feet along in the sand, and took one step after another as she and Oscar made their way towards the remainder of their friends.

XxXxX

As two glass bottles drifted further into the ocean, one was pinned by a rock. It stayed there as the other one was washed onto shore years later, at the feet of a twenty two year old huntress in training at the coast of Vacuo, at the funeral of her beloved teacher.

The girl had silver eyes, tanned skin, and long black and red hair tied into a loose braid. She wore a red jacket whose wide sleeves didn't reach her wrists with a hood over a black tank top with a sweetheart neckline, a pair of black bell bottoms, and a pair of crimson platform boots. On her wrists were two crimson bracelets that held countless amounts of bullets while around her waist was a wide brown belt stocked with more bullets and Dust vials.

The girl bent down and picked up the bottle. She tried prying the cork off, but it wouldn't budge, even with her supernatural strength. She looked left and right to check if there was anything nearby that could help her. She considered breaking the bottle, but the crisp paper inside looked like it would rip if she tried. Her eyes landed on her team leader, who sat on a rock and a cheek in her hand as she stared off into the distance.

Her team leader had long, bouncy orange red hair that was loosely tied into a low ponytail and slightly tanned skin. She wore a sleeveless olive green top and a v neck, slightly exposing her cleavage, along with a pair of faded lilac jeans and leather knee high boots with buckles that held several vials of Dust. At her waist was a white belt that held her staff, folded into its portable form.

The girl walked up to her, expression unreadable.

"Hey, Coral?"

The team leader turned her head, sea green eyes looking at the girl boringly yet attentively.

"Can you…open this for me?"

The girl raised the red tinted glass bottle. The team leader nodded. With a snap of her fingers, the cork disappeared to nothingness. The leader went back to pondering on things while staring longingly at the ocean.

The girl took a seat on the foot of the rock and tipped the bottle. The papers spilled onto her hand. Three of them, all filled with writing on both sides. She placed the bottle on her lap and carefully unfurled the sheets. As she did, a fourth sheet fell out of the center. She picked it up and sighed wearily. Those four girls again.

Black, White, Red, and Yellow.

Except in this picture, the girls were unlike the ones she had seen the previous photographs. White had a genuine, relived smile on her face, the clothing at her stomach area ripped for some reason, the corner of Red's eyes were filled with tears, and Yellow had a yellow and black robotic arm around Red's shoulders and her real arm around Black's, who didn't have a bow on, exposing her ebony cat ears.

They looked happy, but a different kind compared to the other pictures she's seen. The girl put the picture back in the bottle and proceeded to read the letters.

Just as she finished reading the back of the last one, she heard the church bell ring. She looked up at her team leader. They both sighed and got up. Together they walked towards the church.

An old wine bottle stuck in the sand behind the rock, holding a three page long letter containing regrets, secrets, and a memory. It had one job, and that was to take burden that it was given. It was meant to free a huntress who had fallen, yet it failed. It passed the burden onto the next generation, but it was free, just like Ruby Rose.

 _I am A 20 year old huntress of RemnanT. I have been through a_ _ **lot**_ _of things, most I can't even say out loUd, sO I throw this letter into the sea to frEe myself from this grave I dug foR myself._

 _Do You belieVe in fairytales? Do you think they're real, I meAn. I don't have an eraser, so (bear) BARE with me here, please. How would you react if I told you that the tale of two bRothers was real? Would you care if I said that the four maidEns were real? Well, they are._

 _The peace that miLLions of people worked for during the Great War went out the wIndow when I was 15. The (pheNomenoN) EveNT (was) Is known as the FaLL OF BEACoN. I was there. It was painful to watch my world fall arounD me._

… _When I had reCovereD, me and my friends, Jaune Arc, NoRa Valkyrie, and (Lay) LiE Ren, set off to Haven academy, the huntsMan school that was supposed to fAll next. We were right. Along the way, we met up witH my uncle QrOw. He told us about the maIdens, about the four rEliCs that the two brothers hAd given to humanIty when they Created it. They were hidden underneath the Huntsman Sschools. Choice for Beacon, Destruction for Shade, Knowledge for Haven, and Creation for AtlaS._

… _So many things happened while we were trying to retrieve the relics to keep them away from Salem's (Queen of Grimm) hands._

… _I lost my eye In a battle where I was too cocky. I lost my team by charging into a battle we weren't prepared for. I lost my leg And Uncle in my first attempt to avenge my team. I lost myself at my thirteenth attempt to avenge my family, which was a success._

… _I sit here on the shore alongside my dear friend Oscar, who Ozpin has posseSSed. I'd write it down, but Oscar here had already written enough for both of us._

… _We finally achieved the peace that everyone wanted._

 _So we'Re gonna lIve our lives to the fullest while we still could._

 _Signed, RuBy RoSe_

XxXxX

 **It's 10:30 pm right now. I shouldn't be writing this. My mom came in three times in the past hour to tell me to go to bed. I probably should. I hope you enjoyed this.**

 **It's short, and I'm glad. Not as good as I wanted it to be, but good enough.**

 **Please comment and yeah. Bye.**


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